News & Events

Ostrich Eggs Weighing 1,6 Kg Hatched in Incubator

Ragunan Zoo has various collections of birds; some of them are the featured species in the zoo. Recently some of our birds, including ostrich (Struthio camelus), turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), and golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus), succeeded in laying eggs.

The weight and incubation period of these eggs are different, which can be seen as follow:

Birds

Weight

Incubation Period

Ostrich

1,6 kg

±38 days

Turkey

2,8 gram

±25 days

Golden Pheasant

2,5 gram

±25 days

All of these eggs are not incubated by their mother, but they are incubated by incubator. So far there are not many captive-bred agencies which dared to use the incubator to hatch eggs. Only a few captive-bred agencies use incubator, one of them is Ragunan Zoo. As Sailan, the curator of aves and reptile in Ragunan Zoo states “Incubator can be an effective solution to overcome the mothers which often neglect their eggs in the nests or even break the eggs.”

There are some processes which need to be put in consideration while using the incubator, such as:

The incubation period

The technique in laying down the eggs

The schedule in rotating the eggs

Candling the eggs

The temperature and humidity of the machine

“We hope that using the incubator can be an easy way to preserve the endangered species from extinction” Sailan added. The use of incubator becomes a solution if the natural incubation does not go along well. “Regulating the temperature to hatch the eggs is the absolute condition to be successful in hatching the eggs and gain high hatchability. The ideal temperature on the incubator is usually set between 37 – 40˚C by regulating the thermo-regulator.” concluded Sailan ending the conversation.